By BRIAN TYNES

Sports Writer

Stefan Malmqvist garnered Second Team All-Western Athletic Conference honors while leading the Bulldogs to a fifth-place finish at the men's WAC Cross Country Championship at Lincoln Parish Park in Ruston last Saturday.

Malmqvist, a senior from Stockholm, Sweden, finished eighth in a field of 43 runners, one position away from First Team All-WAC honors, with a time of 25 minutes, 38.13 seconds. Malmqvist improved his finishing position by 12 places from the 2003 WAC title race.

Gary Stanley, Tech's track and field and cross country head coach, said he was impressed with Tech's performance.

"I was very pleased with Stefan," Stanley said. "It was his best race of the year, and he saved it for the one that matters. I thought, considering the fact that the rest of the team is mostly freshmen, they ran well."

Marcel Hewamudalige, a junior from Rice University, won the 8K run by finishing 41 seconds faster than Malmqvist.

Of the six runners for the Bulldogs, five completed the race in personal-record times.

Kinsey Dinnel, a freshman from Loranger, La., finished 17th, 1:08 behind Malmqvist, and Jeremy Cobb, a sophomore from Scott, La., placed 25th.

Sam Karanja, Karoly Varga and Zach Schuler completed the Bulldogs' team by finishing 28th, 30th and 31st, respectively.

Rice won the meet with a team score of 27, and each of its five best runners finished in the top 10 with two in the top five.

The University of Texas-El Paso also had two top five finishers, but the Miners placed third in team competition with an overall total of 80.

The University of Tulsa and San Jose State University were the only teams in the six-team field without a top 10 finisher, but Tulsa used the strength of five top 20 placements, three in the top 15, to finish in second place and one point ahead of UTEP.

Boise State University took fourth with a team score of 96, and SJSU placed last with 153, while Tech's team score was 102.

On the women's side, Southern Methodist University, the No. 11-ranked cross country team in the nation, took home the WAC title.

The Lady Techsters did not finish, but Stanley said Tech's women's cross country team is comprised of sprinters and jumpers, not long-distance runners.

"We were very pleased our girls wanted to run, even though they didn't have to," Stanley said. "Cross country is not what we focus on with our women's track team."

Stanley also said the meet was a success, and he looks forward to hosting other events.

"I was real pleased with how the meet went, and several coaches said this was the best meet they had been to," Stanley said. "You always want your peers to be impressed with you when you host something like this."

Tech will begin indoor track and field competition Jan. 18 at the University of Houston Invitational.